The clock has rack and snail striking and strikes on the hour and the half hour. A resonant chord is struck with a double-headed hammer on two carillon bells. There is a strike silencing control on the clock dial. The weight driving the strike train weighs 16 lb. and drops about 39 inches in 10 days.

The time and strike trains are held between plates measuring 10.4 in. W x 11.2 in. H. Six turned pillars hold the plates 4.3 in. apart. The bottom edges of the plates sit in channels cut 0.35 inches deep in a base board. Steel claws grip two of the bottom pillars thus securing the movement to the board. The same method is used to attach the music work to the base board.

The pendulum hangs from a cock on the back plate of the time and strike movement and passes through a hole in the baseboard. The brass-cased bob is filled with lead and weighs about 3 lb. Solid Australian blackwood and metal components make up the pendulum rod. The rod is designed so that the length of the pendulum remains reasonably constant as the humidity and temperature change.(6)

There is a scene from “Waltzing Matilda” at the top of the dial. In Australia, a swagman (tramp) is said to “waltz his Matilda” when he walks through the countryside with his bundle of belongings slung on his back. The song tells the story of a swagman who stole a squatter’s (farmer’s) jumbuck (sheep). The clock features a swagman chopping on a log near his campfire. The parts are all carved from wood and painted. Each hour the swagman revolves as the music plays and he then chops the hour. He also chops once on the half hour. There is a row of 60 evenly spaced pins at the left end of the music barrel that engage with a 10-tooth brass wheel of 1.02 in. diameter. A small wooden V pulley is mounted on the same arbor as the brass wheel. This pulley is connected by a loop of strong linen thread to a similar pulley under the swagman, so when the music plays the swagman revolves.

The axle upon which the swagman’s platform turns is a piece of brass tubing. A wire passes through the tube and connects to a pivoted lever that engages with the pin wheel of the strike train. When a pin meets the lever, the wire lifts the swagman’s axe and the axe falls as the tip of the lever drops off the pin. The swagman chops in unison with the striking of the clock.

The dial is of painted wood with gilding on the edges and spandrel surrounds. The spandrels depict native Waratah flowers and are painted in polychrome. Markings on the chapter ring are in black ink. The dial is sealed with an artists’ semi-gloss acrylic lacquer. Engraved plates are of silvered brass with the lettering  filled with epoxy resin colored with black oxide powder. The hands are cut from steel and blued.

Hear the glass bells (444 kb .wav file)

A glazed canopy mounted above the music work and bells helps to restrict dust from that part of the clock. Likewise, the small box containing the animated scene helps to protect the time and strike trains from dust. The clock sits on a stand of turned Australian red cedar that is French polished and waxed.

Each component was fitted and tested as the construction progressed. The clock took 19 months to build and involved over 2,000 hours of work. It runs well, and tests have found that it keeps time to within one or two seconds each day.

Conclusion

After making my clock, I had the opportunity to visit the Black Forest while en route to the 2000 NAWCC Seminar in London. It was there that I saw Glasglocken-Spieluhren first-hand at the Deutsches Uhrenmuseum in Furtwangen. The clocks were smaller than I had expected. Nevertheless, it was like at last meeting someone about whom I had read so much. The ghosts of Black Forest wooden clockmakers seemed to pervade the galleries of the museum. I made frequent enquiries asking if anybody was still making Glasglocken-Spieluhren, but the replies were all negative; one Neustadt cuckoo clock manufacturer said with a sigh, “You should have come over a hundred years ago!” The names of old clockmaking families like Wehrle, Dufner, and Dold are still to be seen, but the days of traditional Black Forest wooden clockmaking have long gone. However, I spent a pleasant afternoon chatting with an elderly wood carver in his Triberg workshop. I left feeling that I had come a step closer to understanding these ingenious people and their clockmaking heritage.

References

1. Claude B. Reeve, Clockmaking for the Amateur. Making a Chiming Grandfather Clock (U.K.: Argus Books Ltd., 1980).
2. Donald De Carle, Practical Clock Repairing (London: N.A.G. Press Ltd, 10th Reprint, 1982).
3. Karl Kochmann, Black Forest Clockmaker and the Cuckoo Clock (Antique Clocks Publishing & American Reprints Inc., 1994).
4. Karl Kochmann, Black Forest Music Clocks (Antiques Clock Publishing, 1990).
5. D. R. Bailey, “Clock Woods and Some Effects of Humidity on Wooden Wheel Clocks,” NAWCC Bulletin, No. 306 (February 1997).
6. D.R. Bailey, “Effects of Humidity and Temperature on the Performance of a Wooden Clock,” NAWCC Bulletin, No. 333 (August 2001): p. 475.

 About the Author

David Bailey has been a woodworker for over 40 years and began clockmaking as a challenge. He trained as an agricultural scientist and worked for many years as a research agronomist and farm management consultant. When he retired in 1998, David was Head of Security and honorary Yeoman Bedell at the University of New England. He is a member of Chapter 104 and the Sydney Clockmakers’ Society. David has written for the Bulletin before and was awarded a gold medal for one of his wooden clocks at the 1997 NAWCC Craft Competition in Atlanta.